


I've Seen This Face Before

by entanglednow



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Come any closer and I'll shoot you in the throat."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Seen This Face Before

Chris is still going through the motions, still pushing the same way he's always done, the way he's...the way he's supposed to be.

Even though the place where the broken edge of a chain link fence had slashed his stomach open is just a fading red mark now. Warm under his fingers but nothing more. He'd still cleaned it, still bandaged it, instinctively. He's still taking care of his body like it was...like it was human. Because his body's served him pretty well for forty odd years, and it's his. What's he supposed to do, suddenly treat it like it doesn't matter? Treat it like it could heal anything he did to it now. How would that even work? How could anyone who'd ever been human do that?

Derek's hovering behind him, feet heavy on the floor, heavier than Chris remembers. Or maybe not, maybe he can just hear it better now. Derek's lost the ability to appear and disappear at will. Which is something to be grateful for. Among all the things Chris has no reason to be grateful for at all.

"You're going to have to let it out at some point," Derek says. Not for the first time, not even for the tenth time. "Your control is good but it's not that good. It's better to get used to it as soon as possible. If you don't control it, then it'll control you."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't have opinions about me, or my ability to do anything." Chris checks the bullets in his gun. The gun Derek had assured him he didn't need any more. Chris suspects he's re-thinking that opinion, since Chris had taken down the wendigo tonight before it could claw his throat out.

Even a werewolf couldn't have gotten to him across open ground in the time it would have taken Derek to die.

The floor creaks behind him, subtle but unmistakable.

"Come any closer and I'll shoot you in the throat," Chris tells him. He doesn't really care if Derek believes him or not.

"Do you realise how frustrating this is," Derek growls out. He actually growls it, and Chris's skin clenches until he forces it to relax. Forces himself not to react. "It feels like you're one of mine. It feels like I'm supposed to take care of you. Do you understand what that's like?"

Frustration pushes Derek closer, boots heavier now.

"You're a child, you can barely take care of yourself," Chris points out, because Derek has fucked up so many times there's no way he can't know how true that is by now. But Chris can still hear the angry exhale behind him, and he knows if he turns around he'll find Derek wearing that face, the one that he thinks is threatening, but actually looks an awful look like a pout. Chris honestly couldn't care less. "I'm still here because I have a job to do. You promised me you'd help me do it. I never asked for anything else from you."

The extra ammo clip he's handling slips, hits the table and skitters away. He swears and clenches his hand into a fist. It's shaking, tendons twitching and no matter how hard he tries he can't make it stop. But he has to, because otherwise in another second his nails are going to punch through the table.

A hand comes down on his shoulder, a shock of heat through the fabric of his shirt, and the connection breaks, his hand is steady again, fingers still. It's getting a little harder every time.

"Take your hand off of me," Chris says, trying to make his voice as icy as possible. Even though his heart is pounding, like he's spoiling for a fight. Or like he'll start screaming and never stop.

"I can help, you know I can. I'm not stupid, I know there's a lot I don't know. But this is one of the things I do."

"I have no intention of getting attached to you," Chris spits out. "And using you is the same thing." He's better than that and he doesn't want that to change. Not when everything else has.

"You don't have to get attached," Derek says, and Chris has to wonder if he even hears himself, or if he convinces himself he's right because the only alternative is to admit he doesn't know anything at all. Chunks bitten out of you until there was nothing left.

Chris is too old for this.

"Now look who doesn't know their werewolf pack dynamics." He throws it out like an insult, but he's fairly certain that his heartbeat's a mess right now. He doesn't know what it's saying, and he hates that Derek probably does. He hates it in a way that makes his skin hurt.

"Chris, let it breathe." It's a warning more than anything else. Chris can feel it behind his teeth, like a bone stretched to breaking point.

"I don't want to," he admits, quietly, unwillingly. He shakes Derek's hand off, and Derek lets him. "I don't want to do that."

"Sooner or later it won't give you a choice. You can't hold it permanently. It can't be done." Derek's voice has the low certainty of experience. His heartbeat's steady, mostly steady, it flickers and jumps when Chris gets too far to the edge, like it's trying to keep pace with him. Or rein him in.

"And what are you going to do? You know I don't trust you. You know there's a better chance that we'll rip each other apart than I'll submit."

"I know," Derek says, unsurprised, which Chris isn't expecting. It makes him turn around, makes him face Derek and jerk his head in question. "You're smacking it down every time it tries to stretch. You don't have to change completely just give it space, get used to it. I've seen people try and treat it like a separate thing. It'll rip you in half, eventually literally."

Chris clenches his fist again, watches it fold and open.

"I don't like you," he says, and hates the way it sounds like an opening, like a tentative agreement.

"You don't have to. You just have to listen to me."

"I'm not good at doing what I'm told."

Derek sighs.

"You've met the rest of the pack, right?"

Chris's face manages a wry half-smile, not entirely with his permission. But it's already out.

"You have no one else to blame for that."

Derek's quiet for a second, before he nods.

"We're going to kill them, the ones who did this, all of them." It sounds like a promise, and Chris thinks that maybe - maybe he can do this.

"Yes, we are."


End file.
